Comments on: From the Archives: An Abortion Court

By: Juvenile Instructor » From The Archives: Posts You Might Have Missed, September-October 2008

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:01:17 +0000

[...] From The Archives: An Abortion Court [...]

By: Edje

Edje — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:58:54 +0000

PJD: You don’t recall confessions because you live in more righteous wards.

My memories of the seventies include some funky carpet, an ugly couch, and a few other things within three feet of the floor, so I can only comment on what I’ve heard and read about discipline. I have heard a man (baptized in the mid-70s) describe a dishonorably-released missionary asking forgiveness in an elders quorum meeting.

Based on Bush’s article, I think I overstated the case when I said “public confession was a routine part of formal discipline.” I think a more judicious description would be that public confession was “within the range of possibilities” for formal discipline up until the 1970s.

By: PJD

PJD — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:03:17 +0000

Thanks Edje for the link.

Ok, you guys have thrown me for a loop. I’ve been an active LDS member all my life and never recall any podium confessions from members in the 60′s or 70′s. What I do remember is that they would occasionally announce names of members involved in disciplinary action (always in priesthood meeting).
Were podium confessionals really taking place in the 70′s?

By: Edje

Edje — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:18:59 +0000

PJD: Yes, Dialogue back issues through 2003 are available and searchable through the University of Utah’s J Willard Marriott Library.

http://www.dialoguejournal.com/search/

By: PJD

PJD — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:47:38 +0000

Sorry for the deviation, but are Dialogue transcripts available on-line?

By: Edje

Edje — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:32:15 +0000

Thanks, Ardis and J. (Y’know, I actually went to Dialogue; I just used the wrong search terms.)

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:22:25 +0000

If I remember correctly, Edje, the last vestiges of public confession ended in the late seventies. I believe Lester Bush went over this in his Dialogue article…one sec…”Excommunication and Church Courts: A Note from The General Handbook of Instructions,” Dialogue 14 (Summer 1981): 74-98.

By: Ardis Parshall

Ardis Parshall — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:16:51 +0000

A great aunt of mine was seduced as a teenager by a much older married man in the ward in 1930, give or take a year. She (but not the man) was required to confess in a general church meeting; my grandmother kept my mother and her siblings home from church that day. That was only whispered about in the family in my lifetime, but always with the sense that Aunt X was something of a heroine, because her church membership meant that much to her to comply with the requirement. *I* think the penalty was unfair and one-sided, but then I don’t know the whole story; no sense of unfairness was passed down in the family.

Not very relevant to the original post, but a confirmation of the practice of public confession.

By: Edje

Edje — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:06:47 +0000

PJD: If I understand correctly, not only was public confession common, it was not peculiar to that era. Until relatively recently public confession was a routine part of formal discipline. (I’m going off recollection; I think the change was in the late 1970s or early 1980s and I think the requirement was fairly general for most of prior church history. A quick google didn’t point me to any obvious source.)

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:01:31 +0000

PJD, one of my favorite examples of this involved a Bishop in Cache valley who liked the whiskey a bit too much and he confessed to the congregation and was forgiven and persisted in his office. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to stay away from it for very long and was later released.